Question of the Day

Whose side of the story do you believe?

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Lyft, Uber and other ride-hailing companies have taken over one-quarter of the market from traditional taxis since they started operating at Salt Lake City International Airport, city aviation officials said.

The ridesharing services have dramatically changed the game for airport ground transportation in Salt Lake City and elsewhere, City Department of Airports executive director Maureen Riley said. She presented the data to the Airport Advisory Board last week, the Salt Lake Tribune reported (https://bit.ly/20DEdvv).

Ridesharing companies have been running at the airport since September. At the end of last year, taxis accounted for 86 percent of trips. They also generated 92 percent of the revenue for rides at the airport. But four months later, those figures fell sharply. Taxis were shown to be providing 85 percent of the revenue and 74 percent of trips by the end of April.

Airport officials will keep monitoring for any long-term or seasonal trends, Riley said. “We don’t really have a lot of data collected yet because it is so new,” she said.

Lyft agreed to city requirements, including $1 million liability insurance for drivers. Other companies followed suit.

Companies notify the airport of the trips drivers take to drop off passengers and pay related fees based on an honor system. Taxis pay through a system that tracks each cab’s trip to the airport.

The taxi companies and services such as Uber and Lyft have a history of colliding in Salt Lake City.

Before September 2015, multiple people complained cab drivers were price-gouging travelers amid regulatory upheaval sparked by the app-based ride services. Before, fare limits didn’t apply to Uber and Lyft because the companies are regulated by the state, according to airport officials. The companies, however, stopped operating at the airport while working with authorities to hammer out a set of rules.

In 2014, the city tried hitting Lyft drivers with thousands of dollars in fines for operating a ground-transportation service without a required license. The company had argued its service was the same as a friend sharing a ride from the airport and gas money.